Finally, Azzy opened his eyes slowly, like soone waking from a nightmare rather than ditation.
Sweat trickled down his face, dripping off his jaw and soaking into his shirt. His breath ca in uneven pulls at first, then steadied when he forced himself to take long, deep inhales.
He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and muttered under his breath. "What was that..." The shock in his voice wasn’t sothing he could hide. "It’s been years since I even felt pressure like that." He stared at his trembling fingers. "No... not pressure. That felt like divine presence... sothing powerful... sothing like..."
He swallowed, thinking about the eyes that appeared for that single second. "Hera... it has to be Hera, considering she is the one who placed the curse, and only a true god could put such a curse on my body. Normal curses are useless against my divinity... so, it has to be Hera, for sure... but the biggest question is..." He rubbed his chest lightly, as if checking whether the curse left anything behind. "I wonder if she saw ... really saw real ti."
He leaned back and stared at the sky, rembering that it had been months since Uriel ca to him with that hushed warning—so of the archangels forming an alliance with the Olympian gods, all of them aiming for one thing: the soul of the supre angel he still sealed inside his own body.
He had waited for signs, battles, ssengers, anything... but the world stayed strangely quiet, too quiet for his taste so far. "They’ll make their move eventually," he murmured. "Maybe during the tournant... or after the birth of my son."
After a minute, he sat up and exhaled slowly, trying to settle the lingering dread. He then once again paid attention to the music box, which is now free from Hera’s curse.
When he observed it, he saw that the box was carved from orichalcum with tiny runes that looped around the edges like vines.
Now that the curse was removed, it felt strangely light in his hand, almost peaceful, yet humming with quiet danger. "According to the information I got, this has two types of music. One lody shows the fate of the listeners to the one who plays it, and the other carries a curse that makes the life of the listener a curse, filled with nothing but bad luck... Since the curse was lifted, I guess only one lody will have the effect," Azzy murmured. "Let’s see what mine looks like."
He opened the lid.
Imdiately, a gentle tune floated out, soft but piercing, like soone whispering directly into his thoughts.
The lody barely lasted a few seconds before Azzy’s vision blurred. Sothing struck his mind.
His body automatically sank into a lotus position with his eyes closing without his permission. He didn’t resist. Instead, he allowed the force to pull him deeper, like a river guiding a leaf. The world around him lted away.
Then the scene ford.
Azzy saw... himself. He was slightly older in the vision, with his hair reaching as far down as his waist. This older version stood at the edge of a white portal, one that pulsed like a living thing. In front of him, soone out of sight listened silently. Azzy watched himself take a breath and say in a low voice, "Sorry, Leah... but this is how it has to end. I... I have to go."
And then the older Azzy stepped into the portal, swallowed by white light.
The vision snapped apart.
Azzy blinked rapidly while his heartbeat rose considerably. The music faded, leaving the lake quiet again. He gripped his knees, feeling the cold wind cut through his clothes. "What... what was that?" he whispered.
His breath trembled a little as he tried to make sense of the scene. "Is that... my fate? But why... why was I apologizing to Leah?" He paced in a small circle, running a hand through his hair. "Why not Claire? Why not Leiza? Why was it Leah of all people?" His eyes narrowed, trying to recall every detail. "And where was I going? What was that portal?"
The confusion felt like a knot in his chest.
He clicked the box open again and let the lody spill out.
The world swirled. The force pulled him under.
The sa scene replayed—older Azzy, the white portal, the heavy apology. But this ti, Azzy noticed sothing he had missed. Before stepping into the portal, the older version tilted his head upward for a mont. The sky—Azzy hadn’t looked at it before. Now he saw it clearly.
The sky above was blood-red, dark as fresh wounds. Lightning forked across the clouds again and again, and Thunder cracked so loudly the vision shook. Azzy felt his own heartbeat stutter at the sight.
The scene ended again.
Azzy opened his eyes with a sharp inhale.
"What... is that place?" he whispered. "Is it another world? Or is sothing happening here... in the future?"
The music box closed with a soft click.
Azzy didn’t move.
He kept replaying the red sky in his mind, trying to stitch it into sothing that made sense. The vision felt like a warning, but not one he understood.
His thoughts tangled themselves around the sa questions—why was he apologizing, why Leah, why the portal, what world was that? When he thought about it, the mory ca to him when he traveled to the future to et himself, but only to et Leah instead, who inford him that his future self had gone to make a breakthrough. Back then, he believed it. But now... he couldn’t help but wonder whether sothing serious is about to happen. The red skies filled with thunder and lightning appeared like a bad on to him.
While he was in the middle of his thoughts, trying to decipher his fate, without any warning at all, a faint crackle of energy shimred in front of him, like lightning trapped inside paper.
An envelope materialized in midair and floated gently down, opening by itself before it even reached him.
Azzy blinked, montarily shaking off the heaviness of the vision. The envelope unfolded into a floating script, and a voice echoed out in a hurried whisper. "Lord Azrael, this is Estella. It’s an ergency situation. Please co to the Moon Clan village ASAP. Orion is in danger."
The weight of those words hit him instantly. His whole expression shifted from tired confusion to sharp alertness in the span of a heartbeat. The vision, the fate, the red sky—all of it dropped straight to the back of his mind.
Orion’s na alone was enough to sever everything else.
Azzy sent a quick ssage back, his voice low but firm, telling Estella he would arrive within seconds and to send soone to receive him at the entrance. He didn’t waste another breath.
"Co out..."
His sword of radiance appeared in his hand with a flash, and divine light wrapped around him like wings folding over his form.
In one movent, he turned into his angelic state. He raised the sword, muttered the spell, and used its long-distance teleportation. Space around him twisted, and in an instant, the lake vanished.
He appeared at the Moon Clan village entrance, on the surface of a seemingly tropical island filled with coconut trees.
But he didn’t roam around and just patiently waited after returning to his human form until a large gate materialized out of thin air, before it opened and Selene ca running. The mont she saw him, she bowed quickly. "Lord Azrael... thank you for coming. Orion, he... he isn’t waking up at all."
Azzy’s expression hardened instantly. "Tell everything. From the beginning."
They walked through the village paths, Selene walking just a little too fast, as if trying to outrun her own anxiety.
Along the way, she explained everything—how the fallen angel Azazel had suddenly appeared, how Orion fought, how Orion put a stop to the demons with his preaching, and how Alexander, a Supre being, ambushed him and took away a demoness that Orion was trying to change into good.
She rubbed her arm nervously before she added, "That Alexander... he was terrifying. Stronger than anyone I’ve ever seen. Stronger than Zion, stronger than even my parents, or perhaps, my great grandma. But still..." She glanced at Azzy out of the corner of her eye with a faint breath of admiration. "He wouldn’t be a match for you, of course. I’m sure of it."
Azzy didn’t reply. His face stayed unreadable, but his silence said enough—he wasn’t underestimating anyone who could hurt Orion that badly. And definitely not a supre being who is very young.
By the ti they reached the Moon Clan’s main residence, the air felt heavy with tension. Elders moved around in hurried steps, but everyone seed to quiet down the mont they noticed Azzy.
Estella stood waiting with one of the grand elders by her side. She didn’t smile, didn’t waste ti with soft words. She greeted him respectfully but then imdiately motioned for him to follow.
They walked through the corridor into the guest wing. The hallway was silent, as if the whole building was holding its breath for one person.
When Estella opened the door, the room was filled with healers and seal-breakers working around a single bed. Their faces were pale and tense.
Azzy stepped closer.
Orion lay on the bed, with his upper body exposed, sweat beading on his skin. His chest rose slowly, albeit too slowly. At the center of his torso, an eye-shaped seal pulsed faintly, its edges seed very dark, like burnt ink.
Luna sat at Orion’s side, holding his hand tightly, looking exhausted. Her tears had dried into thin streaks on her cheeks, leaving her eyes red and dull. She didn’t even look up at first. She just squeezed Orion’s hand again and again, whispering sothing too quiet to hear.
Azzy stood beside the bed, his eyes fixed on the seal, taking a deep breath. "I never saw this seal..."
Reviews
All reviews (0)